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Former Rutgers QB Mike Teel finds his career calling in coaching

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Mike Teel, Rutgers' career passing leader, has shed his suit and tie from his Wall Street days to devote himself full-time to coaching, returning to his alma mater as a graduate assistant.
(Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger)

I went back and forth for a while about what I wanted to do with my life. At the end of the day everything I came up with was that I wanted to be a coach.'' — Mike Teel

Before Mike Teel finally realized what he wanted to do most was coach football, Rutgers’ career passing leader spent a year and half working on Wall Street, in a suit and tie, doing the commuting grind.

“From the time I got to Wall Street and started doing that, it didn’t feel right,” he said. “I kept saying `give it another month, give it another month, you’ll figure out one day what you’re doing and start to enjoy it.’ ”

That day never arrived.

So he started coaching football at Kean, as an unpaid volunteer – and loved every minute of it.

“I went there every day and couldn’t wait to watch film and get on the field for practice,” he said.

Now he’s back at his alma mater, having been formally announced by Rutgers today as a graduate assistant along with Michael Zuckerman, certain that he has found his career calling. Teel will assist with the wide receivers while Zuckerman will help out with special teams as coach Kyle Flood finally completed a major overhaul of his staff in preparation for the school’s inaugural Big Ten season.

“I’m 100 percent all in,” said Teel, Rutgers’ career passing leader with 9,398 yards and the school record holder with 59 TD passes. “I went back and forth for a while about what I wanted to do with my life. At the end of the day everything I came up with was that I wanted to be a coach.”

After graduating Rutgers in 2009, and following a brief stay with the Seattle Seahawks, Teel wound up back in his home state, serving as a volunteer coach at Kean. He spent 2012 coaching at Wagner before returning to Kean last year as the quarterbacks coach.

He has since left his suit and tie far behind, though he said that was one aspect of the Wall Street grind that “I didn’t mind. I thought I looked pretty good in that.”

Now he will be living coaching life at the lowest end of that professional spectrum.

“I know you need to pay your dues and that I’m going to have to scrape by for a few years,” said Teel, who starred at Don Bosco Prep. “And I know there’s no guarantee after two years that I’ll get a full-time job as a coach. But I think if you work hard and put yourself in a position when opportunity arrives you’ll be able to take advantage of that opportunity.”

The fact that it’s Rutgers, which hit its football heights when Teel was there from 2004-08, makes it “special” to him.

“This place is important to me,” he said. “When I was here at first it was a place the state really didn’t have an interest in. All of that changed during my playing time here. Now to be back and take that next step with us to the Big Ten, to be part of the coaching staff, it’s pretty special.”